“They” are the family first encountered in the pages of “The Wolves in the Walls,” written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean and dealing with a girl named Lucy who is certain she hears wolves in the walls of the house where she lives with her tuba-playing father, her jam-making mother and her brother.

Naturally no one believes her, although everyone is quick to tell her that everybody knows that “if the wolves come out of the walls, then it’s all over.”

And, of course, they do.

Which gives the National Theater of Scotland, in collaboration with the Improbable theater company of London, the material for creating what it rightly calls “a musical pandemonium.”

Photo

Helen Mallon and a furry friend in "The Wolves in the Walls."Credit
Richard Campbell

Transferring this brief, charming book to the stage, the director Vicky Featherstone, the musician Julian Crouch and Nick Powell of Improbable have employed all manner of theater arts, song, music, dance, sets, costumes, props, lighting, sound and projection to turn the proceedings into 75 intermissionless minutes of high-spirited all-out Halloween-season fun for audiences age 7 and up and up.

So, singing, dancing and conferring with her pink pig puppet, Helen Mallon brings to vivid life the acute-of-ear Lucy. Audiences hear Dad (George Drennan) play that tuba, see Mum (Anita Vettesse) at the stove with her many jars of jam, and witness Brother (Paul James Corrigan) coming to grips with his video games and air guitar.

And what would it all be without the wolves (Ewan Hunter, Neil McNulty, Sharon Smith and Jessica Tomchak), as wild-eyed, scruffy and fearsome a lot as could be imagined, with their long toothy snouts and dusty-looking bodies that seem made of frayed and flapping carpet padding.

And what havoc they create when they come out from the walls. Which is not long before Lucy and her family find themselves dancing with wolves.

And, oh yes, for those who know the book, the elephants are there, too.